Baptism and more

Abby is three weeks today!  That flew by!  She fits right in the family, and is so far a very easy baby, doing all the things newborns do.  Andy and I laughed the other day - we had forgotten how much time and work a person that little takes!  I'm enjoying (almost) every minute, time goes by too quickly, and babies don't last:) 

 She was baptized January 4th in the afternoon service.

The boys had a turn holding her when we got home.  This is how it's supposed to look ( more or less), smiling boys all happy to sit with their little sister. (below).

 This is how it actually did look...(below) a mass of boys fighting about who was going to hold her, fake smiles and grabbing arms.  Rowan is convinced Abby is just his size, whereas Seth is the oldest, so he obviously should hold her, and Tristan plods on with a fake smile plastered onto his face.  The above photo was taken after cleaning, admonishing and bribing with a candy.  It lasted all of 3 seconds;))

Can you tell we're having fun with her? 

Abigail Monique - December 23, 2014

"For you formed my inward parts: you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works: my soul knows it very well."

Psalm 139:13,14 ESV

Introducing our fourth child, first daughter,
Abigail Monique Bijlsma 
Born December 23rd 2014, 4:33am
8lbs 2 oz, 50.5 cm.  

       And we are in love. 

God is good and we are thrilled, a little "famke" to bring some dolls and pink into our home.  Her middle name is after my mom and her birthday happens to fall on the same day as my Opa's (her great Opa) birthday!

Birth briefing:
I woke up Andy at two am, thinking something was happening.  We called the babysitter at 2:30 and went to the hospital shortly after, arriving at 3:10am. After some assessment they admitted me at 3:30am, and the "it's a girl" rang out at 4:33am!    I am so thankful everything went so smoothly and so quickly, with no complications of any sort. 
What a relief to be on the other side, with a healthy baby girl to love and cuddle. Which is what we are doing, lots of snuggles going on around here.  With three older brothers this little lady's got in made in the shade. :)  

Having a baby during the holiday season turned out to be very relaxing, no school to worry about, no schedule to keep to, all in all it was lovely.  The day Abby was born our friends the Hummels, took all three  boys for the day.  I went home from the hospital the same day she was born, (much to the Dr's chagrin - I on the other hand couldn't wait to sleep in my own bed, drink coffee with Andy and get away from that hospital food!) so we all slept under the same roof right away.  The next day was Christmas eve, Andy was not busy and we had all the kids here, which was nice. A couple friends came over to visit, which made for a fun afternoon, and we were spoiled with many gifts.  Anno and Carola came over as well with a warm lunch and a doll for Abby:)
Christmas day Andy took all three to church with him while I napped. Seth and Tristan went with our friends (Baremans) to their Christmas dinner, and got to sleep over till Saturday, which was alot of fun for them, and made the house a bit calmer - although Rowan was like a lost little puppy without his big brothers around to keep him entertained.  ;)  Andy and I had "Christmas dinner" on the couch sipping some wine and dining on cheese and crackers. It was so cosy, and special.  Very relaxing!  Imagine the choral classics playing in the background...lights twinkling over the fireplace...snoozing baby in my arms..:)
Although it's a bit sad we  can't show her off to all our family and friends in Ontario we feel very blessed by the communion of saints here in Taber.  We have many good friends who are willing to help and are spoiling us with meals, gifts and more.  We thank-you all, sincerely! 

And now some more pictures, I had a hard time picking my favourites:)  (And there may still be too many - sorry!!).

How it all {possibly} began.

At some point a person gets so sick of being pregnant that it's easy to believe that you will be the first person to be pregnant forever. I had that one week before I was due.  I felt like a whale, and decided that since I was going to be a whale forever, I may as well get used to it and get on with life. 
So we went in the truck thru our back field to the small pond used by the cattle for drinking water.
Driving thru the field was bumpy... the poor baby was rocking inside me like a bowling ball while I hung on for dear life.  Little did we know... about 20 hours later we'd hold the baby in our arms for the first time:)

First things first though. Skating pictures. 

Advent season

Advent.
    A season of joy and beauty.
       A season of excitement and wonder.
            Expectation.

For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given,

and the government will be upon his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
    Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Isaiah 9:6

One of the joys of being parents is seeing the world thru new eyes, laughing at lifes simple pleasures and marveling in the world around you, seeing it anew thru the eyes and excitement level of a toddler or young child.   Christmas is one of those times when at a young age the birth of our Saviour can get turned into something selfish and worldly or beautiful and praise-worthy. 
This is the third year Andy and I have decided to follow the church calendar by consciously celebrating Advent.  And the whole family is loving it.  For anyone out there interested we are using the book "Why Christmas" by Barbara Reaoch.  Twenty five days of devotions, at a childs level but still interesting and thought provoking enough for an adult. There are hymns to sing everyday, a Bible passage to read and scripture to memorize.  Kids have an amazing capacity for memorization and love the building and continuity of learning parts from Luke 2.  I'm the one having a hard time with it since we did not learn the ESV, but rather the NIV, so I stumble a little and Seth proudly rumbles on over me:) 
There's something extra special about expecting a child around Christmas as well, as I can feel the eager anticipation Mary must have felt waiting for her baby to be born.   When will it happen?  How will everything go?  Did she have patience at the end?  The Bible doesn't tell us much but I can feel her calmness and trust in God, making my impatience and nervousness seem insignificant and trivial. 
Just another reason to be thankful from the bottom of our hearts, for God's gift of Jesus, to us.

  O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above your deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears of all the years,
Are met in thee tonight.

O holy Child of Bethlehem,
Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sins and enter in,
Be born to us today.
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell:
Oh, come to us, abide with us,
Our Lord Emmanuel!

Sinterklaas kapoentje,

"Sinterklaas kapoentje,

gooi wat in m'n schoentje,
gooi wat in m'n laarsje,
dank u Sinterklaasje."

Ahhh...  "MOM!!!  Did Santa come last night?"  Santa Claus? 
Whatever.
It was totally confusing this year.

The kids couldn't wait for the boots to go up by the fireplace and talked incessantly about Sinterklaas, but when they saw Santa in the mall, they were calling him Sinterklaas.  Which wasn't too bad except that Tristan was all excited about Sinterklaas coming with the reindeer...down the chimney...  Which of course we have to clarify:)  
And that led to how are we going to do this, the Dutch way or the Canadian way? 
So many fun things associated with the traditional dutch way, but also so confusing for the kids, and most of it's not making any sense to them due to the canadian culture.   We just really do not want to do the gift part on Christmas day as children being children, can hardly separate the birth of Jesus from Santa and receiving gifts. I'd love to hear from you my friends, how you do it, and why!
So with all that being said, we decided on a conglomeration of both:D And we told them that's what it was too.  Not full out Sinterklaas, since it was not on the 5th, but we still did the boots by the fireplace thing, and chocolate letters.  They could call it whatever. 

Andy and I so enjoy watching the excitement build, and spoiling the kids with some gifts, that hopefully get much use in the winter months.  This year Andy and I hired a babysitter and went to Lethbridge together for an evening to shop. It was fun, and so much better when Andy helps pick things out, his imagination for what's fun for little boys is better then mine, like when we went to Costco and Andy saw this rocking horse for Rowan.   Seriously? Seriously.  :)   And of course three sets of bows and arrows are way more fun then one... Yes of course. 

Gingerbread House Building (there's a first for everything)

Have you ever made a Gingerbread house?  Why do you do it?  Why is it such a tradition for so many people?  Do you keep them and eat them? Or gaze at it then toss it?
I really have no idea what it's all about.  I've never done it and wasn't planning on doing it either, ever.  I'm not terribly keen on wasting things, so building a house out of not-so-great-cookie and filling it with not-so-good-for-you candy doesn't really make sense to me.  When our church had an evening planned for the ladies and children to make Gingerbread houses my gut reaction was "nah".... but when the kids saw the poster they were so excited I couldn't be the mean mom and say no. So we went to Walmart, bought a kit and had a hoot, decorating to our hearts content.  :))  I thought I would be constantly telling them "don't touch" when we took it home, but it's Andy I have to worry about :)    Between him and Rowan... the house will be eaten in no time!

We assembled the shell at home so the icing would harden before decorating. 

Seth and Jayden VanderGaag - buddies

For the Love of Learning

 We've been chugging along merrily in our school books.  Our school morning starts with singing our memory work - we've been following Coaldale Christain School - bellowing out the national anthem and reciting the books of the Bible.  Then comes Math and Explode the Code, copywork, journaling, science or whatever happens to float our boat that day.  Dad comes in the house for coffee at 10 am which means a break for all, time to get the wiggles out and fill those hungry (again) tummies!
October has Thanksgiving in it which is an excellent time to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and focus on the gifts we've been given (Thanks Ann Voskamp for changing 'the world' with your book 1000 Gifts! Haven't read it? Better get on that...it's been on the New York Times Bestseller list for 60 weeks straight!).  We did this each evening by hanging a leaf with something we were thankful for on the tree I put on the bulletin board.  I love what the kids came up with.  Even Rowan was insistent about putting that tape on the back of his leaf and picking a spot on the tree to hang it. He came up with his own answers too, which were usually things he loved that day like his toy truck or driving in the truck with Daddy.   

With the arrival of October 31st, we did some reading and learning about Martin Luther.  Which of course leads to all those other questions... What is a monk? Why would someone ever be a monk?  Why would people ever not like someone just because he wanted to believe only what the Bible said?  ...we took alot of detours, which made things quite complex. So we'll do more on it next year.
November is a long dull month on average so we decided to do a project on Canada.  What a great place to start eh?  ;)   A trip to the library brought home many fantastic resources, and we had alot of fun making some crafts to go with the things we learned about, including the flag and other symbols of Canada.  We dug in depth into Ontario and Alberta and mapped the country out according to province/territory, mountain ranges, natural resources and different animals.  It was the highlight of every day.  After going over the two official languages I was later testing Tristan and asked him what the two official languages of Canada were. He replied "english and...." so I helped out by saying "Frrrr..." He exclaimed "FRISIAN!"  Ahh.  A son to make his father proud;))    I guess he hears more Frisian then French here, so what do you expect, right?

(Tristan)

(Seth)

Experimenting with circles

Watercolour pencils (I think I have to get in on these. Super Fun!)

 And last but not least we had company from Alma Ontario yesterday which was really enjoyed by Andy and myself.  It was a family friend, Mr J. Post. Thank-You so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to drive out to Purple Springs! He came loaded down with gifts from not only him and his wife but also Beppe, aka Mem.  It was like an early birthday for all of us!  So last night the kids went to bed late as we indulged and played the new games they received.   We were spoiled, and greatly enjoyed it:) 
Thank-You from all of us!